By empty (7/13/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Russia has expressed bewilderment over the statement made by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in his address to graduates of the Georgian National Defense Academy, in which he called on them to \"be ready for a large-scale foreign aggression on Georgian soil,\" Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko told reporters on Tuesday. The text of Yakovenko\'s speech has been posted on the ministry\'s website. \"If the Georgian president meant Russia, it is absolutely unclear and unacceptable.

By empty (7/13/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said on 12 July before his departure on a three-day official visit to Great Britain that the mandate of the Russian peacekeeping forces deployed in the South Ossetian conflict zone should be changed because those forces openly side with the South Ossetian authorities. Saakashvili further accused Russian military intelligence of fuelling the conflict in South Ossetia, and he said that the Georgian government knows \"precisely\" who in Moscow is channeling weaponry to the breakaway republic. In 1993, the Georgian authorities produced a dossier detailing weapons transfers to Abkhazia organized by senior Russian military officials.

By empty (7/13/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

One person was killed and another two were injured when an explosive device was set off on Tuesday in the Leninsky region of Grozny near acting Chechen President Sergei Abramov\'s convoy, Abramov\'s aide, Igor Tarasov, told Interfax. Abramov was not injured, Tarasov said. Deputy Chechen Interior Minister Ruslan Alkhanov, who was present at the scene of the bombing, told Interfax that one of Abramov\'s guards was killed in the explosion.